From what I've been gathering around the internet, JW's are taught that after highschool, higher eduation is not needed. They put the idea in one's head that it costs way too much to go to school,and put fear that they'll have a lot of money owed and will be in debt forever. Okay that may be true, but they do not tell you that there are JR college that cost little to nothing to go, sometimes even free. I went for free. I think the society wants people to be not higher than a hs diploma so they will NOT get hired to make the money that they could use for school. They say too much time will go to school and not to studying Gods word. That is not exactly true. I had time to go to school, study, hang out with friends and read the Bible for myself. I wonder where they get their facts from? Does that go with all the other ideas that they feed?
No School?
by bite me 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Gopher
When I was hindered from attending college, the money aspect wasn't the reason. It was more that I wouldn't be pursuing their definition of a "spiritual career". Also, there would be "bad association" and "worldly ungodly ideas" taught like evolution that would likely prove fatal to my spiritual pursuits as a JW.
They frame it as this: You're putting your everlasting life in danger!
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bite me
That makes no sense at all. I mean it makes sense what you said, but not what they teach. They do teach about evolution, but they do not teach that it is how we all got here. Maybe they need to go to school to see this. You do nothing but sit in a chair, listen and learn. You are able to voice your own opinion about things. If you wanted to believe we arived from an ape, so be it, you were not brainwashed with it. Philosophy was my favorite class, one of them anyway. And archiology too. I was never taught that we came from apes. We were, however, taught there were ideas of it not that it was a fact.
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snowbird
My nephew who is on the fast track to become a MS was offered a full academic scholarship to a premier Jesuit institution, but was talked out of accepting it because he "might be expected to address some of the faculty as 'Father.'" This is a true story.
Sylvia
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Gopher
Oh - another thing about the bad association -- you'd miss meetings, and you'd be involved in orgies and drunkenness. (Well, I guess some of those things might be true, but such things would interfere with their cult indoctrination program.)
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bite me
lol Those things don't go with everyone. If they are going to get involved, they are in that style long before. I think I missed the boat on that. lol
Oh yeah, you cannot miss meetings, their count will go down. oh no!
I to this day have never had a drink (of beer or it's likeness). no joke.
Personal choice on that not because anyone told me it was wrong.
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Bonnie_Clyde
We paid for most of our son's first year of college. Then he got a college loan plus a small scholarship. He was a hard worker and careful with his money. He managed to pay off his college loan within one year after graduation. I was amazed. He's making great money, he's not a bit boastful, he is a loving caring person, and he has finally found the love of his life. I will admit that his education made him start asking questions, and that's what led to his leaving the "truth." I am so happy for him. I can't imagine how unhappy he would have been washing windows.
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WTWizard
Here are the major reasons why they don't want people to go to school:
(1) They might learn to think on their own. Most colleges offer philosophy. In Philosophy 101, I had to come to my own conclusion whether or not there was a God, and if there was, was He worth worshiping. Of course, that conclusion was not binding since new experiences from later would affect my conclusions.
(2) Time spent in college is time that could have been spent in field circus.
(3) People that go to college often have classes on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and missed meetings would result. And they put the meetings there on purpose to control the people (notably, when congregations try to have Monday/Wednesday meetings, the hounder-hounders and hounder-hounder-hounders will put a stop to it.
(4) If I were a Witless kid and went to college against their directive, that would mean it would be that much harder to get hired by a "brother" and locked into my religion by my work. If I successfully landed a job as a computer programmer or administrator of a ISP company or system, and then blew out of the religion, it would hardly matter since I would not have a window washer job under a "brother" to worry about.
(5) Any extra association with worldly people means more chances of getting apostate ideas.
(6) Many colleges have Internet access as part of their required course work. I remember when I was in college in the mid 1980s, and the computer work was not online. Now, they all have Internet access and expect students to do research online. In fact, you can go to college totally online these days! And, while you are online for one project, it is easy to find a porn or apostate Web site by "mistake".
And, they want people to yearn for that "new" order. If I am well off, I will not be yearning for it as much as I might if I am worried about that window washing job paying for the gas it is going to take pioneering. Better educated people also view the world differently, independently of wealth or lack thereof. Whether or not I am making money off physics, it does dispel a lot of those demon myths that they love to throw around. And, all this makes for a person that is more likely to blow out of the Tower.
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changeling
Dear bite me: JW's are discouraged from higher education because their system of belief relies on gulibility. An educated person questions what they are taught, this poses a danger to the WT.
CHANGELING
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AlmostAtheist
>>An educated person questions what they are taught, this poses a danger to the WT.
Agreed, that's the real issue. They wouldn't even have to be intentionally evil to come up with this. Just work the numbers. Of those that leave the org, how many have college educations? From their perspective, it would seem clear that SOMETHING happens when you're at college that "corrupts your thinking". (In actual fact, it STARTS your thinking, and therein lies the problem!)
Dave